Oklahoma/Texas Panhandles
A few cities include: Amarillo, Canadian and Guymon.
Local tornado season: Peaks between mid-May and mid-June.
Terrain: Plains north and west, mixed bag to the east.
Road network: Fair, but with some gaps and irregularities.
Radar coverage: Good around Amarillo, limited north and east.
The Oklahoma and Texas panhandle region is considered a classic area for storm chasing. The panhandles experience several severe thunderstorms with tornadoes during the spring. Most storm seasons tend to produce at least a few strong tornadoes here. Very large hail is often another obstacle of the panhandles as intense supercells frequently form here during storm season.
Terrain
There is just about a little of everything in the panhandles in terms of terrain. The western Texas panhandle and most of the Oklahoma panhandle are relatively flat plains. There are a few hills and patchy areas of trees mixed in. Elevation also increases, gradually, with westward extent.
The central and eastern Texas panhandle is a little bit more diverse. Hills and rivers tend to be the dominant terrain feature north and east of Amarillo. The Canadian River cuts through the area, featuring some forested areas along its path to make storm chasing a little bit more difficult. To the southeast of Amarillo, the Caprock region begins, featuring a challenging array of hills, thickly forested areas and canyons.
Road network
The road network across the Texas panhandle is not the most favorable for storm chasing. Most roads tend to follow curved, irregular paths. There are gaps in the road network as well, especially north and east of the greater Amarillo area. The road network in the southeastern portion of the Texas panhandle, near the Caprock, can be frustrating as well. Often, there is only one paved road that will lead you to a storm here. This frequently results in storm chaser bottlenecks (traffic) during severe thunderstorm events. The Oklahoma panhandle has more of a grid-type road layout, but even in that area, there are often multi-mile gaps between stretches of roads.
Interstate-40 is the main freeway that will take you east or west across the Texas panhandle. I-27 will bring one south from Amarillo toward the Lubbock area. I-27 comes to an abrupt end in Amarillo, so if you need to continue north, consider taking the TX-335 loop or some other deviation around to bypass the downtown area.
Radar coverage
KAMA is the radar coverage for most of the Texas panhandle. It does a good job at covering most of this region, although coverage becomes limited in eastern areas, near the border with western Oklahoma. The far northeastern section of the panhandle falls in a bit of a radar hole, where only the fringes of KAMA, KDDC or KVNX may be able to help you out.
KDDC gives fair coverage to the eastern portion of the Oklahoma panhandle, but central and western parts of the Oklahoma panhandle have little to no radar coverage at all. If storms are expected to approach the panhandles from the northwest, a large radar gap in adjacent southeastern Colorado can be problematic.
In summary, while the panhandles are known for chase-worthy tornadoes, it is not the easiest place to storm chase in. Hills, trees, rivers and even the occasional canyon make traveling the often irregular road networks even more challenging. There are also a few gaps in radar coverage to consider, meaning you might only have your two eyes to rely upon when storm chasing here.